Advances in technology now enable construction of containers from a broad variety of materials that may be laminated or otherwise coated. A box folding procedure may be followed in succession by a sealing process, dependent on whether the container is intended for storage of dry or liquid contents.
The initial activity in box folding is scoring the container blank to form segments or box sections that are divided by weakened points which are the score lines. The prior art folding procedure generally provides for advancing container blanks along a conveyor belt to a backing bar where a folding belt engages a box flap edge to fold the flap onto a container panel. The container blanks are thus folded along their score lines for box formation with the designed segments or sections.
The paramount considerations for box folding machines is speed of the operation and minimizing process interruptions, for effective reductions in manufacturing costs.
Therefore, a need exists for a paper box folding apparatus that would enable simple manual alignment of the box blank on the backing bar to form properly proportioned segments according to the box design; that would give folds on the score lines to avoid skewing; and, to achieve the folding process with paramount speed and a minimum of interruptions in the process. In addition to the foregoing, a need exists for an inexpensive paper board container that is easy to assemble and close. These are among the objectives that are achieved by the invention disclosed herein.